Apple Cranberry Salad with Fried Seitan and Almond Dijon Dressing

I rarely post salads. As tasty as salads can be, I want to do my part in convincing the world at large that vegans don’t survive solely on lettuce. But this salad? Whoo boy. I love this salad.

My husband calls salads like these “tossed sandwiches” and I’m inclined to agree with him. Our favorite salads aren’t just lettuce; they usually included our favorite veggies, a tasty homemade dressing, tofu or seitan, and sometimes fruit and/or nuts. We don’t make wimpy “house salads” with a few leaves of lettuce and some sliced tomatoes. Our salads are entire meals that look like they’ve exploded in the bowl.

While I think this is a perfect salad, the fried seitan is really tasty and would go great as part of a non-salad meal (with mashed potatoes and gravy? Yes please!) or shoved in a sandwich. It’s crispy and delicious and meant to resemble country fried chicken.

I’ve given directions for making the seitan from scratch (it’s not hard!), but any pre-made seitan should work. The main benefit of making it from scratch is being in control of 100% the flavoring and texture, but feel free to sub store-bought seitan if you want. It’s FANTASTIC with homemade seitan, but I bet it would still be pretty good with commercial stuff too.

The dressing is almond-based, flavored with lemon, mustard, and spiced with Old Bay seasoning. The fried seitan also relies on Old Bay. It’s a wonderful commercial spice blend that you should seek out if you’ve never tried it. You can find it at any major grocery store, and it gives the perfect seasoning to the fried seitan. The ingredients are (copied from the bottle): Celery salt, Spices (Including mustard, Red Pepper, Black Pepper, Bay Leaves, Cloves, Allspice, Ginger, Mace, Cardamom, Cinnamon), and Paprika. It’s so good.

You can make the seitan ahead of time (up to a few days in advance) and then deep-fry it when you’re ready.

Mix the dry ingredients together. Combine the wet ingredients and stir well. Add wet to dry and knead until a dough is formed. Add more liquid if needed. The gluten will develop very quickly. Knead a few times on your counter, forming a ball. Cut the ball in quarters, forming four triangular wedges. Squish/Pound/Pull the wedges into 1/2″ thick cutlets. Take your time shaping, letting them rest if needed.

Once they’re the right thickness, put a large, high-walled skillet on medium heat, adding the water and bullion cube to make a braising bath. Once it starts simmering, add cutlets and turn down the heat and cover. It’s important that you DO NOT boil the cutlets. Check several times to make sure the broth is just barely simmering. Boiling isn’t a disaster, but it will change the texture of the cutlets, making them spongier and rubbery.

Simmer, covered for 20-30 minutes, flipping halfway through. You can now refrigerate the cutlets in their broth for later, or fry immediately. I think cutlets that have been refrigerated over night before frying have a better texture, but you can use them right away.

Heat the oil to 350º F in a 10″ skillet, cast-iron is best. Mix together all the dry ingredients except the baking powder. In another bowl, mix the wet ingredients together. Add baking powder to the remining dry ingredients and mix well.

When oil is heated, dip a seitan cutlet in the wet mix coating well. The dredge the cutlet in the dry mix and gently slip it into the oil. Fry for 2-3 minutes on each side, until golden brown and crispy. Drain well on a paper towel and slice if desired.

Assemble the Salad

Toss lettuce with the salad dressing and plate. Add sliced apples and dried cranberries. Place 1 sliced fried seitan cutlet on top and drizzle with more dressing. Serve while the seitan is still warm.

50 comments

This sounds delicious! Is there a combination of spices that approximates Old Bay Seasoning, or is it something unique? I just bought a box of gluten, and am looking forward to some seitan-making. I’ve never made boiled seitan before, only baked, and trust your repices and would love to try this one!

Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen Old Bay seasoning in years! I have really fond memories of going to Maryland with my parents and ordering a dozen blue crabs which were always smothered in the stuff. The crabs were dumped right onto the table (covered with a classy brown paper tablecloth) and in the process of eating them, your hands would get coated with a layer of Old Bay so thick that no amount of paper towels or handi-wipes could quite cut through it all. And you had to be reeeeally careful not to touch your eyes, but it was so worth it!

Somehow it never occurred to me that Old Bay existed outside of my memories, or that it could be used on anything other than blue crabs. Now I think that almond vinaigrette is calling to me!

Don’t shoot me for this but this looks like the natural version of all those fast food “healthy” salads. :P I’ve never tried seitan, but I do love my salad… I might pick some up for this.
And what’s the big deal over Old Bay? xD I’ve never heard of it.

Hmm. I just made a half-batch of the cutlets, planning to pan-fry them, and they’re half way between chickeny seitan and matzah balls. Part of that is probably a minute of too-strong simmering that snuck in, and hopefully some pan-frying will help, but they’re sort of mushy and not very flavorful. I wonder if I botched reducing the recipe. But let this be a warning against simmering too strongly!

If you have a few minutes to spare, could do us a huge favor and read the article and comment at the bottom of the page? We’re very excited about getting such great press, especially from a magazine of this caliber. If everyone drops by and leaves a quick comment, soon there will be no doubt in any publisher’s mind: YES, readers absolutely do want to know about vegan happenings and developments. Please don’t hesitate to repost the article on your blog and spread the world!

VeganCowGirl – The recipe does call for vital wheat gluten. It would be a disaster with regular flour! I know it’s possible to make seitan with regular flour, but this recipe requires vital wheat gluten. Perhaps you were looking at the breading?

Emily – I commented on your article. I can’t wait for Wheeler’s to open up in Boston!

I’ve just discovered your blog and it’s amazing, and the pictures are so pro! Just one question: what’s old bay? I’m from Italy so it’s unavailable for me. Maybe I can try mixing, what, spices? I’d love to try it out! Please…

I live in Maryland and I am a big fan of our almost official State Spice Blend, Old Bay. It makes everything good…Old Bay fries, Old Bay chips, Old Bay in “Not Tuna Salad” with TVP, Old Bay tofu scramble…and now, there’s this Old Bay soul food seitan. It was easy. And it ruled. The dressing was really, really good on my veggie wrap for lunch the next day.

We’ll be eating the leftover cutlets with asparagus and whipped cauliflower tomorrow. Thanks for the righteous recipe.

Thanks for this great recipe. I made it tonight and loved it. Didn’t have cranberries, but raisins worked well. I also had to make up a seasoning because my co-op didn’t have Old Bay. Delicious anyway! The dressing was fantastic – it’s great to see a unique dressing made without oil (well, I suppose the almonds give it some fat, but it’s not like whisking in 1/4 cup of olive oil), even if the seitan is fried. :) Overall, it was maybe a tad salty, but I don’t think that’s this recipe’s fault. I used a different recipe to make the seitan(from La Dolce Vegan) that’s too salty all by itself.

Thanks again. I look forward to trying some of your other recipes. I stumbled upon a picture of this salad on Flickr and wish I would have known about your blog a long time ago.

I too am an Old Bay lover. It’s harder to find now that I live on the West coast (and in Canada) but so worth it. The seitan cutlets turned out really well for me, and the leftover breading mixture makes really good hushpuppies!

The dressing tasted good but my blender isn’t quite good enough I think… it stayed gritty so that was a bust. Maybe if I had time to soak the almonds or something.

What can I do to replace Old Bay Seasoning? I could not find it here in Chicagoland. I am going to try to make this without the seasoning but would love to know what I can use instead…..

I listed the spices contained in Old Bay in the entry, so you could try to make you own “mix” if you want. I also think if you search for it online you find several home recipes for a similar seasoning. Good luck!

Thank you so much for all the work you do on your blog! This recipe was amazing, I made just the seitan and served it with mashed potatoes and herbed gravy, and mixed steamed veggies. It was amazing and my hubby was so impressed. I think my patties were a little too thick and I’m pretty sure I let my water boil a little, but it was still amazing!